Clermont-Ganneau, Charles°
CLERMONT-GANNEAU, CHARLES°
CLERMONT-GANNEAU, CHARLES ° (1846–1923), French Orientalist. He studied under Ernest *Renan and served as translator at the French embassy in Constantinople and at the consulate in Jerusalem (1867); he was later vice consul in Jaffa. In 1868 he discovered the *Mesha Stele and an inscription from Herod's Temple forbidding gentiles to enter the inner court. From 1871 to 1874 he was associated with the Palestine Exploration Fund and he identified Gezer in 1873. In the 1880s Clermont-Ganneau helped expose the "Moabite" pottery fraud and challenged the authenticity of the *Shapira manuscripts. In later life he taught at the Collège de France. His works include La Palestine inconnue (1876); Les fraudes archéologiques en Palestine (1885); Archaeological Researches in Palestine (2 vols., 1896–99); Album d'antiquités orientales (1897). He wrote hundreds of articles and notes, collecting them in his Études d'archéologie orientale (1880–96) and Recueil d'archélogie orientale (1888–1920).
[Michael Avi-Yonah]